 With a small group of his friends, Catărău made a group of soldiers of the Russian Army and of some Moldavian soldiers from the Chişinău Garrison, who trustfully "elected" him "Commander of Chișinău Garrison".In this quality, he started to send groups of soldiers to pillage neighboring villages and bring to Chişinău oxen, cows, horses, cattle carts, which were taken not only from the boyars, but also from peasants.These were brought to the court of the Theological Seminary in Chișinău, where Catărău waited for their peasant owners to show up, and in lieu of a payment would order to free the cattle, thus making thousands of rubles.